This timeline is a chronology of the spread of the Black Death that reached Europe in the mid 14th century killing around 50 million people – possibly as many as two thirds of the population.

It was originally thought that the disease was spread by black rats, but due to the rate of spread and the lack of evidence of large numbers of rat corpses (Bubonic plague kills rats), it is now thought that the bacillus that caused the disease was airborne; spread by the victims themselves.